PHP protobuf error - Undefined method for encode/decode

Question

I'm trying to learn about Protobuf in PHP using https://github.com/google/protobuf/tree/master/php . Currently I'm stuck in an error.

My steps to install protobuf:

Install protobuf through pecl with command:
```
sudo pecl install protobuf-3.2.0a1
```

Set composer.json as below, then run sudo composer install

{
    "require": {
        "google/protobuf": "^3.2"
    }
}

Below is my code:

Proto file:

syntax = "proto3";

message APIReq {
    string functionName = 1;
    string name = 2;
    int32 time = 3;
    string type = 4;
}

Command to generate PHP Class from .proto file:

protoc --php_out=/var/www/html/ MsgFormat.proto

The protoc command resulted in two file, APIReq.php and GPBMetadata/MsgFormat.php

After that, I added require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php'; and require_once __DIR__ . '/GPBMetadata/MsgFormat.php'; in the generated PHP file because when I ran php APIReq.php it came up with

    PHP Fatal error:  Class 'Google\Protobuf\Internal\Message' not found in /var/www/html/testing/APIReq.php on line 13

After I added those line, the error disappeared, so I assume both line fixed the problem

my PHP file (following example from https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/reference/php-generated, section Messages):

<?php
    require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
    include_once('APIReq.php');

    $param = new APIReq();
    $param2 = new APIReq();
    $param->setFunctionname('functionname');
    $param->setName('name');
    $param->setTime(123456);
    $param->setType('type');
    $dt = $param->encode();
    $param2->decode($dt);
?>

When I run the PHP code, it returns error message:

PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined method APIReq::encode()

How can I fix this?

Edit: Tried this with protobuf 3.3.0 as well, with same result.

Ahmed Bebars Ahmed Bebars · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-04T13:29:23

Encode & Decode not exist in the codebase as I traced down.

This change was introduced in 3.3.0

//to encode message 
$data = $param->serializeToString();

//to decode message
$param2 = new APIReq();
$param2->mergeFromString($data);

PHP protobuf error - Undefined method for encode/decode

1 Answers